DESCRIPTION:

This is an index to the earliest surviving will books of Georgia counties formed before the 1832 Land Lottery. It is not based on original wills, since many of these have been lost or destroyed, but on verbatim copies of wills found in county will books. Designed to simplify the research process, this index contains the names, in alphabetical order, of about 20,000 testators, the name of the county in which the will was filed, and the designation of the book in which the complete will can be located. A smaller proportion of entries derive from miscellaneous estate records such as appraisals, inventories, divisions, letters of administration, and guardian bonds, and are identified by an appropriate reference.

Researchers should note that this is an index to the earliest extant will books of counties formed before 1832 (except Chatham County, whose estate records have been previously indexed) but that owing to the loss of so many court records, some of the earliest extant will books date only from the mid-nineteenth century.

Source: Original data: Austin, Jeannette Holland. Index to Georgia Wills. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003.

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